denmark to tokyo: september 2000
the flight from denmark took off late at night, all of us shitting ourselves to see what we had been dreaming about for so many years. japan...it just associates with so many oddities in your mind, you just have to see if any of them are true: toilets that spray and dry you all aided by a small control panel beside you, the bathrooms where there are bird noises continually to stop people being embarassed about the sound of their "plop" hitting the water, streets full of modern-ity, highly organised society with everything working on the dot and without any problems, signs in manga....etc
anyway, before i get ahead of myself we enter the plane, a 747 PIA (pakistan international airlines) which seems to have not been modernised since it rolled off the assembly line, all the signs and notices were in french? Anyway, we were all lead through the plane by a specially appointed stewardess who led us past all the hundreds of pakistanis going home, up to the first floor reserved for first class, and seated us with 14 other gaijins (foreigners). We felt a little strange, this desperate distinction between cultures, but after having been down and seen the size of the chairs downstairs compared to ours we did not raise an objection.
The flight lifted off with lethargic ease.....and my heart started pounding again with the rumour of adventure, that rush when you are leaving all that is familiar once again, to tread the roads that will pour into you new memories and new experiences...many of which you will never forget !!
We made it as far as Islamabad before we made our first stop, only for 40 minutes to allow people on and off. We then headed towards Lahore for the same reason, and then finally onto Karachi, our first stop !
The flight to Tokyo was scheduled for the next morning so we had the remainder of the day to kill in Karachi, being allowed out of the airport without a visa since our hotel was 2 Km away. We checked into Midway hotel, showered and all decided to head out into town and explore. I had been to Karachi almost exactly one year before and remembered some sights to see, although the only thing we ended up doing was searching for LOMO*s in the camera markets. We had fun, just walking around and realising that we were really back in asia........wow.
Back at the hotel we ate from the buffet and went to sleep. Next morning we were back at the airport after convincing the driver of the complimentary shuttle that we did not have dollars, pounds or deutchmarks that we needed to get rid of into his ready hands. He was rather agitated.
Back in the air we lean't back and filled our minds with Japan once again. After about 6 hours we landed in Manilla, managed to tear away from the plane and enjoyed a cold san miguel at 6 in the morning....ugh. It was only a few hours from there to Tokyo.
tokyo: september 2000
We passed through immigration without any problems and were greeted with the news that jan eriks bass had been left in pakistan !! He took it really well and we continuted out to meet the people there to pick us up. Elsa came with her american friend and we all packed into her van and glued our eyes to the windows. I remember some of the first impressions i got in japan, wondering whether this place was really in Asia........it was so opposite of everything i have known of asia ! Everything seemed to function so well, it was so clean and orderly, so quiet and yet crowded. Anyway, we made our way through tokyo and drove southwest to the suburbs, to our home for the next week: hiratsuka.
The next week was spent in hiratsuka, with our hosts Kai and Kasias, sleeping in their tiny apartments, coming home late from walking around the neat neighbourhoods, drinking sappora beer at 7-Eleven, watching the Japanese students walking to and from Tokai University. I loved it, the weather was perfect, around 25-30 degrees, slightly humid and sometimes a shower would catch us unawares, leaving the surrounding nature so green and lush. We found a beautiful Buddhist temple up the road and would walk up there late at night and sit and contemplate. Every morning would start with us walking across the road to the vending machines (they have these lying all over japan, it seems like a national addiction) and buying a cold coffee for 100 yen. We would then walk back to the house and sit on the steps in the sunshine smoking marlboro mediums and drinking cold coffee......the greatest start to the day !!
We the needed to find somewhere to practice since the first concert was in a week at the club Pangaea. One night we were walking through Tokai University and we heard music coming from one of the practise rooms, we all went in to explore and found a band practising there ! After they found out that we were also a band they wanted to hear us play, so the guys played a song for them. They really loved it, and we had found a place to practise and a group of new friends.
to be continued:
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